Wednesday, April 11, 2012

On Feminism

I wanted to draw your attention to a fascinating article over at le projet d'amour, entitled On Feminism: Romantic Femininity. I appreciate the discussion, though I'm not sure I've personally ever felt any negative gender implications from the artworks I love. But I found her comment at the end about Bright Star especially thought-provoking.

3 comments:

Interesting article/post! As a feminist (who simply believes it means men and women should be equal), who finds this art beautiful, I'd enjoy seeing more equality in displaying women as strong, aggressive, and defiant. People are multi-faceted, after all....men and women....and I hate simplistic, stereotype baloney. But it's also important to remember that times were obviously different back then....

As someone who draws and paints, I feel grateful to the strong women that soldiered on and fought for the right to paint and express themselves just as "loudly" and creatively as the men. If interested, the book "A World of Our Own" by Frances Borzello gets into a lot of that.

One of my favorite fictional characters is Ellen Ripley from the Alien franchise. I can appreciate an Ophelia painting and Ripley rampaging on a movie screen. I love that I'm living during a time period where I can enjoy both. :)

The Beautiful Necessity

This blog is devoted to all things Pre-Raphaelite and Arts & Crafts. The two movements began during the Victorian era, and celebrated a return to the aesthetics and simplicity of medieval times, as well as the romance of nature and chivalry.

The central tenets of the two movements are still very important today, perhaps even more so.